[Hudlug] changing screenreaders

[Ben Fowler]

On 19/04/06, MICHAEL WEAVER <michaelweaver1 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> I am beginning to wonder if I might be better to use Orca for speech under
> Gnome rather than Gnopernicus?

I am quite happy to switch whales in mid stream, but I would suggest
that if you
feel that gnopernicus is not the correct route, then the problem
really lies partly
with X and partly with Gnome. (I would actually like to do a little more work
on this before coming to this conclusion, but if you have already made up your
mind then that is fine).

I would therefore suggest that you/we more or less abandon the visual and
screen orientated world of Gnome and use the command line approach of
virtual terminals and screen.

> Someone on one of the mailinglists that deals with Gnome and Linux said
> something about the fact people don't seem to be putting much development
> time into Gnopernicus and reading into it, I am wondering if they think Orca
> is likely to be the way to go as regards GUI accessability under Linux.
> I have pasted some information below from a Wiki page.
> I still also feel that trying to get a keypad working with my Laptop may be
> the way to go if these screenreaders use Keystrokes that need a numeric pad

Yes. I am not quite sure how central is this problem, but you have made it very
clear than a separate (USB) numeric keypad would help.

> Unless of course I am using Linux at home on my desktop, assuming I can get
> Linux working with speech or perhaps I should say better speaking of Linux
> without having to do all the manual commands in whatever screenreader I use
> be it Gnopernicus, Orca or anything else.

I would emphasise that it might be easier to solve problems like "I am totally
blind and wish to receive and answer e-mail", rather than "I would like to get
Linux working with a screen reader". Which problem would you like us to work
on?

The wiki you referred to is probably http://live.gnome.org/Orca . I
think that we need to
know (if you wish from the Orca folk) what are the distinctive
features and advantages
of Orca, and in particular how it compares to Gnopernicus. Before
starting to work
with Orca you need to know that it can be used to solve the problem(s)
that you have.
Even if this is not clear, Orca might be a good bet if you happen to
know that it
is suited to running on a laptop with Ubuntu.

I will probably not be at the 1st May meeting (and may not be at the
June 5th meeting
either), but if you wanted we could probably get together at some time
in the preceding
week.

Ben